


Duties

by Katherine



Category: The Lion King (2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 12:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: Simba snatched time with her from his duties, surveying the Pride Lands, taking reports from Zazu and others, belatedly learning how to be a king. Nala had her own tasks.





	Duties

Simba snatched time with her from his duties, surveying the Pride Lands, taking reports from Zazu and others, belatedly learning how to be a king. Nala had her own tasks, and the change from prisoner under Scar to new queen was, she was fairly sure, nearly as jarring as Simba's adjustment. But _she_ had never forgotten the Circle of Life.

Hunting, carefully timed as the herds trickled back into the lands, took up a lot of the pride's time. Nala was an especially good hunter, as she had willed herself to be from her cubhood days before Mufasa's death. Patrolling was another duty of the pride, Sarabi near-gleefully at the head of them to run off the few hyenas that strayed back towards what had been their place of plenty.

So, Nala was tired, yet that did not stop her from tugging Simba away one night, to make the two of them king and queen in bodily truth. She sought privacy, a distance from the sleeping pride. Simba followed in her pawsteps towards the waterhole, shouldering through the grass behind her with increasing eagerness.

Remembering the waterfall in the jungle, Nala led her husband right to the water's edge; when he touched her back it was with wet forepaws. She could not give him back the jungle, but that lush place had shaped him as well as had the Pride Lands of their birth. 

Despite the pull of instinct they were clumsy in connecting to each other, this first time. Nonetheless, as Simba's mane tickled her nape, Nala felt an age old confidence that they would come to move smoothly together, in this act and in their lives as rulers. They would love, and protect the Pride Lands, and make an heir to follow after them. The Circle would continue.


End file.
